PHOENIX – On Wednesday, Arizona Attorney General Mark Brnovich referred the massive breach of privacy by the Arizona Department of Education to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. The Department Education claims it “inadvertently” released private personal information relating to almost 7,000 parents who participate in the state’s Empowerment Scholarship Accounts (ESA) program.
In his letter to the U.S. Attorney Mike Bailey, Brnovich writes, “Federal privacy laws, or other federal law, may be implicated as a result of this disclosure. Because our Office would not have jurisdiction to enforce federal law under these circumstances, we bring this matter to your attention so that the U.S. Attorney’s Office can review and investigate if warranted.”
The breach was first revealed by the Yellow Sheet on Monday. The Yellow Sheet reported that the Arizona Department of Education (ADE) provided a spreadsheet that included the account balances of every ESA account in the state, along with the names, email addresses, and other personal information of the almost 7,000 parents with ESA accounts.
Matt Beienburg, the Goldwater Institute’s Director of Education Policy has argued that the ADE has “a legal and ethical obligation to keep private” families’ personally identifiable data.
“Instead, it not only divulged that information, but put it directly in the hands of anti-school choice groups dedicated to undermining the ESA program and the families participating in it,” said Beienburg.
Data privacy and confidentiality are serious matters. The disclosure of confidential ESA information is concerning. We have referred potential federal privacy law violations to the US Attorney for Arizona for review and further investigation if warranted.
— Mark Brnovich (@GeneralBrnovich) January 29, 2020
Given the fact that the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA),a federal law which protects the privacy of student education records, handing the case over to the U.S. Attorney’s Office only makes sense.
The ADE doesn’t have legal problems on just the federal level. Earlier this month, the Goldwater Institute has filed a lawsuit against the state Department of Education over its handling of the ESA program. The Institute claims that “Education Department’s arbitrary and confusing administration of the program has been keeping many ESA families from receiving the funding to which they’re entitled. As a result, these ESA families—many of them with special needs students—were forced to delay or even abandon educational opportunities that were helping their children learn.”